Platitudes
by Spicy-obsession
Summary: "That's the thing about getting old, Shepard. The platitudes get just as old." What could have been. Post-ME3 ending.


A/N: Kept deliberately vague so the reader can fill in his/her own headcanon for certain stuff. Implied "green" ending. REVIEW PEOPLE.

* * *

"_You know Garrus," Shepard announces, "now that we've been forcibly retired, we'll probably be spending a lot of time here."_

_The turian raises his drink to her as a ray of sunlight reflects off of the glass, scattering beam fragments over the cresting waves in front of them. "You don't hear any complaints on my end."_

"_I was thinking," she continues in a tone of voice that he's heard before whenever she gets a crazy idea, "that you should pick up a new hobby."_

_He inclines his head. "Like…"_

"_Swimming," she says too cheerfully._

"_Hah. Thanks, but no thanks." _

_Shepard sits up in her fold-out chair, staring him down. "Why not."_

"_You obviously haven't seen turians in the water." Garrus swirls the contents of his drink around fast enough to form a miniature whirlpool and shows it to her. "Picture me in here, only instead of swimming it's a lot of flailing and splashing interrupted by occasional bouts of drowning."_

_She shrugs. "So you need lessons." _

"_Or a second opinion."_

"_Or I could teach you."_

_Garrus raises a brow-plate, digging his feet into the warm sand. "That won't be necessary. I'm perfectly content staying put on dry land."_

"_What's the matter?" Her eyes are narrowed, but there's a funny tilt to her mouth. "Don't trust me?" _

"_Not as far as I can throw you," he replies dryly._

"_Even with that reach of yours," she says without missing a beat._

_He snaps his mouth shut, but not before a traitorous chuckle escapes him. Cracking his neck, Garrus admits, "Can't say that for much longer. I'm not as young and spry as I used to be."_

"_Neither am I," Shepard confides in a loud whisper and reaches over to take his hand. There are cracked lines, new creases he doesn't remember seeing, that crisscross her skin like a road map of her own making. At least her grip hasn't loosened yet. "We'll take this slow. No rush."_

"_Never thought I'd hear Commander Shepard say that."_

"_Yeah, well." She turns to look at the late afternoon sun. "It seems like I have all the time in the world now." _

"_The longest break we've ever had." Garrus isn't one for sentimental claptrap, but even he has to admit that Virmire has its perks ever since the cloning facilities had been destroyed and repurposed to be a resort planet—the prelude to the sunset he's about to watch now is proof of that. _

_The woman beside him squeezes his hand. "You earned it."_

_He squeezes back. "So have you."_

_The planet's equivalent of seagulls soar overhead, their boisterous cawing a reminder of the lives that Shepard had saved so long ago, lives both big and small, for things as distant as ambient wildlife and—Garrus brings their still-entwined hands to his mouth—for those a little closer to home. Shepard, his commander, friend, and partner smiles at him, eyes bright and clear as the future._

_They don't say anything more after that. There's no need._

* * *

Garrus Vakarian had never met anyone like Commander Shepard, which explains why he was at a loss for words during their last talk before Ilos, when everything he wanted to thank her for was poised on the tip of his tongue, only to emerge as a feeble, one-word "thanks." She, of course, had taken it in stride, as she had with everything else on that wild ride for Saren, and clapped his shoulder soldier-style before heading off to speak with Wrex. He had stared after her then, not knowing what was to happen afterwards, but completely at peace should the worst have come to worst. Turians, after all, were raised from birth to accept sacrifice.

* * *

"_Take a look at this," Garrus says, gesturing to Shepard from his seat at her personal console. "Message from Tali."_

_She saunters over, unraveling the towel wrapped around her head, and shakes out her hair. "What does it say?"_

"_She's pregnant," he tells her, letting out a pleased rumble._

_Shepard grins. "That's fantastic."_

"_I don't suppose we'll be the godparents," Garrus muses, "or at the very least get naming rights." At her inelegant snort, he asks, "What? Afraid I'd name their kid after my rifle?"_

"_Or worse," she says bluntly. "Tali will want it to mean something." Shepard bumps her hip against him, and he obliges, rising to let her take the seat. While she checks her terminal, Garrus moves behind her with his hands on the back of the chair._

"_And you think she can do better?"_

"_Better than 'Scoped and Dropped.'" _

"_Yeah, like 'Chikkita.'"_

"_Go for the optics," she finishes, and the two share a good laugh-natured laugh at their friend's expense._

_He watches the water bead on the nape of her neck, still damp from the shower, and slides his talons over the vulnerable skin, gently massaging her scalp, to which Shepard makes her own pleased hum. "Who knows, this could be the first of many."_

"_Kal will have his work cut out for him." She shifts in her chair, allowing more access, and soon grows relaxed and pliant under his attention. _

"_Like nothing he's ever faced," Garrus says, chuckling under his breath._

"_The great unknown."_

"_The last frontier."_

"_I'm happy for them," she adds with a wistful note that is not lost on the turian. _

_His fingers still as he considers his next move. "Tali's not the only one who'd make a great mother."_

_Shepard goes equally as still, and even though he can't see her face, Garrus can imagine the odd almost-smile he's sure she's wearing. "And Kal's not the only one who'd make a great father," she answers quietly. _

_His chest constricts because 1) he doesn't know where she's going with this, and 2) he doesn't know if he wants the conversation to go there or not. "Not that it isn't flattering, but I thought we'd decided that…"_

_She twists around in her chair then, her strong profile peering up at him. "I haven't changed my mind, Garrus. We said those things to each other back in London when everything was hanging by a thread. It's been years…but that doesn't mean I don't wonder every once in a while." _

_He can't help his mandibles from fluttering uncertainly. "No regrets though?" _

"_None," she says, her voice tender in a way that he's never heard her use for anyone else. "You're all I need."_

_Garrus stares at her, thankfully not slack-jawed but fully expecting things to always happen like this: being rendered speechless by Shepard one freely-given moment at a time, never knowing how to precisely express himself in words, and having her not care anyway. _

"_Same here," he replies and leans down to kiss her._

* * *

None of this (going rogue on Omega, working with Cerberus, taking on a suicide mission through the Omega-4 Relay) was covered in Garrus' training manuals so he winged it like he had been doing everything else since joining Shepard on the original Normandy. The difference now was that she had crossed the line from Commander to friend to maybe-something-more in the space of a few months, but the turian found that he didn't mind so much when her hands lingered on the armor she had just helped him back into after their precious few hours before the mission. She started it. He might as well end it, guns blazing with his friend at his side.

* * *

"_How bad is it?"_

_Garrus cocks his head to one side. "You've seen better days."_

_Shepard looks like she's about to laugh and winces instead. "Is that your professional diagnosis?"_

"_As the one who personally pulled you out of the rubble, yes."_

_Her eyes—the good one, that is—twinkle at him as she leans back against the bed in a hospital room that's been her makeshift home for the better part of a month. Garrus wasn't kidding when he more or less said that she's in bad shape: multiple fractures, internal injuries, the usual scrapes and bruises, and a bald head from where the doctors had to shave off all that human hair in order to reach the gaping wounds on her skull. For weeks, there had not been a single blip on her heart rate monitor until a few days ago so yes, Garrus would say that the commander has seen better days. However, that doesn't mean that she—battered, bruised, but alive—isn't a welcome sight regardless._

"_So how much longer am I stuck here?" she croaks, her voice hoarse from thirst and disuse._

_He scoots closer to the edge of her bed, careful not to disturb his own bandages. "Until you don't look like crap."_

_That rips an extended laugh-wheeze from her throat, to which he starts in alarm, only to be stopped by a slow shake of her head. Once she regains her breath, Shepard mutters, "Ever the charmer."_

_Too relieved to respond immediately, Garrus touches the threadbare covers, flexing his talons inches from her brown hand that lies unearthly still. "Someone has to tell you like it is," he manages._

"_Yeah," she says, on the verge of adding more, but trails off unexpectedly as another silence—not tense, just heavy—settles over them._

_Outside the flimsy walls, there are sounds of nurses and doctors running, gurneys wheeling, the odd groan or cry: hospital noises that are more surreal than comforting. Two soldiers stare at each other, wordlessly sharing the same thought: it's over. Neither of them speaks it aloud for fear of jinxing their cosmic luck, but they need to acknowledge this event somehow in their own private moment (outside the inevitable ceremonies and loud celebrations) so she takes a deep breath and smiles, splitting her lip from top to bottom in the process. Naturally, this sends Garrus to his feet, head turning for the door to call for somebody, but Shepard uses her other one good hand to grab his wrist and yank him down to her eye-level._

"_I'm fine," she grits through her teeth, still smiling fiercely. "We're fine."_

_He carefully presses his forehead to hers. "There's going to be a lot to clean up."_

"_I know." She closes her eyes. "But I'm here to help."_

"_Thanks to me," he coughs out quickly. _

"_Keep making me laugh like this, and I'll reopen my bandages."_

"_You've held up so far."_

_She lightly taps her chest. "Practically indestructible."_

"_Wouldn't have you any other way."_

* * *

The entire galaxy is riding on this single push for a beam in the middle of a wrecked city on Earth, but all Garrus can think about are concepts like selfless duty or sacrifice, and how they all get thrown out the window when he takes Shepard into his arms for what may be the final time and makes his most selfish request for her to come back alive. When she reassures him (like she always does, despite the look on her face that says otherwise), he wants so badly to believe her that his hands let her go, as if there will be many more chances to hold her after this one last fight.

* * *

Tali wakes up to an empty space beside her in the middle of the night. She sits up, rolling her shoulders as she folds the covers back. The Rannoch moonlight filters through the glass in waves that illuminate the edges of various furniture: a chair, a table, the long side of a dresser. The balcony outside her window is completely bathed in her planet's nocturnal glow, highlighting the lone turian leaning on the railing. Sliding her mask back on out of sheer habit than necessity, she sleepily wanders across the room and slides the door open.

Garrus doesn't react when Tali stands next to him. They both look out over the houses sporadically dotted on the valley below them, some fully constructed, the others still works in progress. "Dreams again?"

He merely grunts in response.

"Which one?"

"Does it matter?"

She's glad he can't see her blush, but there's no hiding the physical recoil. "I guess not."

He sighs. "Sorry, this…isn't how I wanted to spend my visit."

"It's alright," she says, chancing a bare hand on his arm, "I'm just glad to see you."

The talons that curl over her fingers is reply enough, but the faint, green gleam his skin emits will never cease to unnerve her, as do the green eyes that stare back at her in the mirror every morning. Keelah, it's been years since they had both discovered the new redesigns of their DNA in the wake of the battle in London, but there is no proper adjustment period for a change like this. She glances at Garrus and the tired way he carries his shoulders. For a death like that.

With nothing better to offer, Tali leans her head against him, relishing the warmth and sturdiness he has always provided. "I miss her too."


End file.
